I am finding these suggestions helpful to me as I try to regroup after the deaths of my husband and son last September and October. So thank you for that!
I have completed one Grief Recovery class (excellent in my case), and I'm nearly done with GriefShare, so I do believe group sessions help those in need, with any type of loss. If I'm not allowed to mention businesses, please delete this part.🙂
@tgraf66 As others have already said, you have taken the first step in opening up to this group to seek help. Your bravery and clarity of mind are noteworthy.
Take one of the steps others have gently suggested. Move. Get out of your living space every day. Even if at first that step is taking a walk in your neighborhood or a nearby park.
Be alert for ways to recognize and help others in small ways. A nod and a brief smile... a kind gesture toward a friend or stranger have astonishing ripple effects. I suspect you already do this without realizing its impact on others.
For now, forget the master plan. Take one small step. That will lead to another...
I'm sending loving, healing Reiki energy to help you regain your footing.
Be well tgraf66, and know that you are loved and respected--and that you have agency.
@lolo57 So glad you reached out to post! I feel like this upcoming time where your work contract ends and you possibly bring your mother-in-law into your home is not a coincidence. It may give you the time to get her settled and integrated into your daily lives in a less stressful way. As with anything, there are adjustments, but it sounds like you all have a good relationship and that will be the basis for positives going forward.
@tgraff66
I wanted to add that creating your own affirmation is always themost powerful so certainly use Ponder's words but even better if you use them as starter points. Even more important take a moment in meditation or quiet and figure out what exactly you do want. Visualize that exaxtly the way you want it and the Universe will get something to you that is amazingly close. I always start any affirmation with what I call bookends. The first bookend is
With good to all concerned, free will intact
Then put what you want no holds barred because you have protected yourself and others by honoring thier good and thier free will
The closing bookend is:
This OR SOMETHING EVEN BETTER now manifests for me in Light and with Blessings.
The last is because sometimes we are so stubborn that we don't see around our "wannas" to something we haven't even imagined. Let the Universe think bigger than you can.
So, mix and match the affirmations bring in your heart's desire do the etheric "paper mache" be disciplined in reiterating your goal and truly amazing miraculous things happen.
I wanted to get that in and now I get to go pick up my sister bookends (I am a proud middle) and probsbly will not post again while they are here.
Once again this thread has magnificent tools for healthy and happy job and EVERY DAY positive results.
Oh Mr Franklin is here again. DO figure that out I am filled with curiousity!
Gotta get going the Sisters are arriving!
Blessings
And pleas forgive typos I don't have time to proof 🤣
THis is not an intuitive take on the subject--- but my thoughts are that even though your MIL is a wonderful person, issues are bound to arise when you move into HER house. She'll be accustomed to having the house run in her way, to her liking, and having you move in is bound to upset her routines. She will have to bend and compromise, and so will you, since you and your husband are both adults with your own established habits, likes, and dislikes.
Do you think everyone involved will be able to manage this with minimal conflict? I do not know the answer, but I advise all three of you to think about it carefully.
Well, I have to say mea culpa to @tgraff66. I have a bad habit here of just assuming any poster is female unless the name indicates otherwise-like unk-p, dannyboy, lawrence. Poor Allyn in my mind was a fellow for the longest time, which also was incorrect. It's just that old "oh, there's someone like me" syndrome.
I have to agree that doing little things for yourself is the place to start. Getting outdoors is good for the mind, body and soul. I haven't been doing enough of it in the last year, and I feel the difference, and after this morning's walk, I see my oldest dog feels it too. We only did a quarter of the distance we used to do and she was lagging, while the pup was still bouncing and raring to go. This will improve for all of us with time and commitment.
Also, I found that I used to limit myself. I want X, Y, and Z in my job. Once I let that go, and took what came along-even if I really didn't want to- I found it usually led to someplace else that I hadn't imagined. Being a single mother with a child who had some differing needs because of their life experience, and then needing the freedom to take care of my parents at the drop of a hat, led me to not have a career per se. But in the end it's worked out somewhat. My financial advisor has a hissy from time to time, as I take out of savings to supplement when he'd prefer I didn't, but it is what it is. I ended up doing house painting starting in my 50's to make myself self-employed, saying when I'd work and when I wouldn't. It hasn't been financially the best thing, but it met the needs I was sending out to the universe.
@lolo57, as I read your post, I heard "don't sell the house." Now, I can't claim that this was a message from spirit vs my own experience. It's something I've been trying to drill into my youngest lately-in the even something happens to me. I know from recent experience that there is a 5-year look back period if you have a senior in a nursing home and their funds run out, thus requiring medicaid. No transfers of money, property, cars, etc. is allowed in the past 5 years for them to get medicaid unless those funds are reimbursed. Their car and home (up to certain values) are the only things they are allowed to keep. So for example, if you move your mother into your home, keep her home as it would be viewed as her primary residence, which the law says she can keep, just in case she recovers and gets discharged. If you sell her house (assuming if she owns), the nursing home would have to be paid out of pocket with those funds before you could apply for medicaid. In my father's case, I did transfer his car to myself to get him out from insurance payments. I knew about the 5-year rule, and purposely didn't sell it. When we applied for his medicaid, I was told to transfer it back, which was just a trip to the DMV. No penalties for either of us, and I saved several thousand in insurance costs for him.
It's a pain in backside process. I'm still fighting with my father's nursing home. I got a letter at the start of April telling me they intended to discharge him. He can't come home, he requires too much care. The problem was in order to qualify for medicaid (application was made last July), their accounts have to be utilized down to a few thousand. We did that. The application to DHS was made, and our first application was turned down. The nursing home had ONE form to fill out and send, and they missed the deadline. So instead of a bill amounting to his monthly income for August, he got a bill for nearly 11K. It's hard to pay that kind of overcharge when you turn everything over to the home to begin with. I had to threaten to get an attorney in the last two weeks, and they finally seem to understand it was their error, so it should be their responsibility, but I'm still waiting to find out for certain. Taking care of our senior parents is hard, sad, and rewarding all at the same time. Do some research and know all your options before making financial decisions, however, as it can have effects years down the road if you are not prepared.
So for all here, know we are all fighting battles behind the scenes. Sometimes it's easier going than others. That's why this community is so great. We can come here and ask for advice or support, and there will be others willing to do so-even if it's just a kind word, good thoughts, or prayers.
Tgraf66
Very long-time lurker here. But Jeanne’s invitation to share ideas on job loss caused me to respond. The jobs and the market have changed substantially since I was working, but the anxieties, and the mental, emotional and physical stress they produce, remain the same. I’m going to share my story with the hope that you know you are not alone in your struggle and that you will grow from it. In 1980 when the economy was in recession and unemployment was almost 8%, I was out of a job. Standing in very long lines with dozens of other overqualified people, I was willing to take anything just to pay the bills. After months of trying to find work, I hit that wall of depression you described. That was the day I could not get dressed only to be rejected one more time. I hit rock bottom. Then, a few weeks later, I saw a newspaper (yes!) ad looking for people to work in foodservice on the show floor of a major international convention center in my city. The temporary, minimum wage job was far beneath the $ of my previous position, but I felt that because it was such a simple job, I could pull myself together sufficiently to present for an interview. The most difficult thing I did that morning was to get dressed, open the fear-laden front door, move myself over the threshold, and step out into the world.
Then, I was on autopilot. Emotions suspended by having to navigate thru traffic until I reached the convention center, I arrived early and found myself at the front of a line that eventually extended out the door and around the corner. Although my degree was in education, that day, I became one of six people hired to sell food. Over the coming weeks, I found my fear of failure dissipating as I interacted with the many international customers who just came to me for food. As the days went by, I devised systems for customers to attain food service on the convention floor more easily. Within a few months, I was asked to join the sales staff as both a secretary and manager of the systems I’d created. A year later, I was tapped to be the assistant to the General Manager and then the Regional Manager. These advancements happened because I was present when the openings occurred, but also because I was in a state of mind I called, “open to the universe” — open to wherever it was leading me. Years later, when the foodservice company lost its contract at the convention center, I again lost my job. But I was so well known in the building that when a new Convention Marketing Director was looking for a secretary, I was recommended.
This position was actually very challenging since I had to learn everything about marketing from scratch. But, two years after I started the job, an interoffice memo dropped out of the universe and onto my desk. The convention center was about to start several community-based programs that would assist people in moving off welfare and into jobs. The memo said they were looking to fill the position of Manager of Training & Development. A huge bell rang through me! I remember the memo shaking in my hands as I realized this position would enable me to merge my education background with all I had learned about the hospitality industry over the past several years, and combine it with all I had experienced with job loss, and how I learned to open the door and cross the threshold into a new life.
For the next two decades, the Academy staff and I provided training, direction and job placement support for the community surrounding the convention center. Our students’ success inspired family members, friends and neighbors to apply. The Academy closed in 2010 when both the Director and I retired. But I’m very aware that none of it would have happened if I hadn’t opened the door that day and crossed the threshold. Those years taught me that when we break through our fears, when we walk right through them, we find a gift waiting on the other side.
Everything said by all the wonderful people on this site is exactly the right information. Get used to walking out the door by doing just that — exercise your body daily, release emotional stress by absorbing the sounds and sights in nature. Most of all, calm your mind by remembering that every human being has the seed of divinity within, and It’s looking for every possible opportunity to manifest through your creativity and in the loving kindness you express to others.
For a long-time lurker, I’ll close by suggesting you consider what Jeanne and others have suggested: Freely offering your services at a nearby food bank or thrift shop that assists those in need is a wonderful way to gently re-engage with the world. As was also suggested, before paying for professional job placement assistance, consider checking out the resources in your local library. And, although you have to use your discernment, YouTube might also offer some insight about the present job market. I’ve used YT to learn how to fix my toilet, grease the garage door, get grease out of the jeans I was wearing when I greased the garage door, how to self-publish a novel and much, much more — all for free! As a former job placement specialist, and someone who has been reading your posts on this site for years, I’m telling you, tgraf66, you’ve got this! All positive energy is surrounding you as you cross the threshold into your new life!
This is such a fantastic post! I love your whole story!! I also appreciate the "open to the universe" mindset. I love how in the end, you were able to incorporate all that you had learned for the job which is currently yours. Amazing! Thank you so much for posting and welcome to our community. Hope to see you around more now that you made your first post.
Those are great tips, thanks. Wow on the nursing home provider! What a huge error on their part!
@tgraf66 I don’t know what state you live in but in Michigan many Career Tech centers have adult programming. The programs are often limited to areas of highest need - ours graduates welders, nursing assistants and heavy equipment mechanics. This is a longer term solution to your overall problem and with a ruptured disk being what took you out two of those in particular wouldn’t be good but to get retrained for free it might be worth looking into.
Call the local high school and ask what organization services them for career tech ed and see what programming is available.
I wish you the best my friend.